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Crop insurance, labor part of Pennsylvania farm bill discussion

The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee says a large group of farmers and other stakeholders talked about their farm bill priorities in a listening session Friday.  Glenn GT Thompson tells Brownfield the risk management safety net programs were very important to them. “That was a consistent message, to make sure that we’re protecting crop insurance going forward, and that was loud and clear from both, obviously, the producers but also the lenders.”

Thompson says helping farmers and processors secure an adequate workforce was also brought up Friday, and he says bringing back the Farm Workforce Modernization Act will be important. “While I appreciate the farmers and the citizens who are willing to do those jobs, there’s just not enough of them that are willing to take on those tasks.”

Thompson says he would like to schedule the official farm bill bipartisan listening sessions to take place starting in February in many regions of the U.S. and have the farm bill written by late summer.